Poetic Thursday, Has My Heart Gone to Sleep?
Has My Heart Gone To Sleep?
Has my heart gone to sleep?
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,
scoops turning empty,
only shadow inside?
No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
Not asleep, not dreaming—
its eyes are opened wide
watching distant signals, listening
on the rim of vast silence.
Translated by Alan S. Trueblood
Antonio Machado
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,
scoops turning empty,
only shadow inside?
No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
Not asleep, not dreaming—
its eyes are opened wide
watching distant signals, listening
on the rim of vast silence.
Translated by Alan S. Trueblood
Antonio Machado
This sums up the way I've been feeling the last couple of days...on the edge of a silence. Trying to stay patient and open, even as I can feel myself growing restless. I don't understand this stillness--am I hiding from myself? Or is this a necessary prelude? The not-knowing feels stiff, frozen.
Labels: Poetry Thursday
posted by Anonymous at 3:43 PM
12 Comments:
My creativity often goes in cycles. I experience something like build up and then I have tons of energy for creative work. In the build up phase I might to appear to others to be doing nothing, but I have learned to trust that I am always, always growing something. Despite the fact that I have become much more aware of needing art (of many sorts) in my life and am more driven about doing the work, still moments remain. I used to be afraid of this. I worried that I had dried up, that I wasn't going to see this creative business through (guilt). But I trust now that it's just a part of the process for me. This may be what you're going through now. You wrote a lot of very very good stuff in a short amount of time. Maybe you're in the pregnant phase :-)& are growing soemthing new...
beautiful poem. speaks to me. there is a quote that says something like "there are years that ask questions and there are years that give answers." for me, the silent times are for my heart to ask the questions and the the answers come in form of actual productivity.
this poem is wondrous...but i am drawn even more into your words filled with truth and honesty...
I don't know this poet, so I thank you for the introduction.
In the past I recall cutting myself off from feelings to avoid pain I was not ready to feel. I hated the numbness, too, even though it was self-imposed.
Love "beehive of my dreams" -- wish I got to experience mine more often. I almost never remember my dreams. But then, I have plenty of the other kind of dreams - the wishful, waking kind. I make up for not remembering my night dreams in a surfeit of daydreams!
Lovely!! All I can say is go with the cycles and know that soon you will move into another one. Sometimes stillness is good!!
This is a lovely poem -- and speaks much to the interaction of inner creativity and the manic outer reality that surrounds a baby. I too get frustrated at what seems like a lack of outward production. But there is always, always, something turning on the inside.
resonating with you.
this poem really spoke to where i am at. thank you yet again.
love!
I love Machado.
What exquisite encouragement, this lesson in this poem. It is so hard to be still. I too am often restless and impatient. Thank you for sharing both the poem and your recent experiences.
miss u.
miss u still. *wink*
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